by R. Lee Smith
Perhaps instead of breathing, he should have touched her. She might have understood that better.
Understood what, exactly?
He turned his palm over and stroked his fingertips along his own wrist-pad, back and forth, watching the monitor. It seemed a decidedly rigorous way to copulate, more like battle than mating. And it went on and on and on. He wondered if human bondmates copulated every day. And if so, if they had time to do anything else.
‘What is wrong with me?’ he asked himself suddenly, but it was a ridiculous thing to ask even in the quiet of his own mind. He’d touched Sarah’s hand, and yes, friends touched, they touched all the time and it was not strange to do so, but he’d shared his breath also, he’d wanted hers, and that act was intimate. There was nothing wrong with it. It may be unnatural to some degree (a fairly large degree), but it wasn’t wrong.
He liked her. He trusted her. And more than that lay some deeper emotion he could not put a name to. It was almost a craving. Not a sexual desire, there was nothing in her soft human body to arouse him, but sex was certainly a part of it, because…
Because…
Because he wanted to be with her.
Oh, that was an unpleasant revelation. When had that happened? And what was he supposed to do with it? He’d gone to the Blue House because of Sarah and there was no point trying to deny it. It had been her touches he’d been seeking in that miserable place, some part of him had known even then that he wanted to be with her. And Sam! Ko’vi help him, he’d hated to see Sam’s hand on her, hated it, not just because it humiliated her, but because…because…because Sam knew how to touch her and he didn’t.
He did not want to copulate in that fashion. It was on some level abhorrent to him, but he thought he could. He wanted to hear those sounds coming from her throat, see her hands reaching back to embrace him. He wanted to please her when they mated.
When.
Enough of this.
He switched off the television. He went outside—unlike his son, he did know what the toilet in the bathroom was for, but like so many things in this world, it was not made for him and he didn’t want to use it—and stared up at the sky for some time after he was done. He could not see yang’Tak’s star from this place, but the stars were still beautiful. It seemed to him that he didn’t always think so, but they were tonight.
Sanford went inside, shut and locked the glass door, and walked down the hall to Sarah’s room. She didn’t wake until he put his hand on her shoulder, and when she did, it was not with the frantic lunge of an anxious mind, but merely a hum and a sleepy query.
“We are yang’ti,” he told her. “Our people are called yang’ti.”
She looked at him in the dim light, her eyes catching the moon through the window. “Thank you,” she said, taking his hand.
He touched her palm, where her seams might be if she had them.
She touched his, her fingers small and smooth and hot on his receptor-pads.
They parted hands and he went away to sleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sanford woke to the smell of food. That alone was a phenomenon unvisited in many, many years, but it was doubly hard to ignore T’aki’s reaction. The boy came kicking and struggling out of the nest, immature claspers dashing at the air and a look of wild hope across his face, just as though he had not feasted to the very limits of his shell the previous night.
“It smells good. What is it?” T’aki asked, crawling to the edge of the bed (Sanford was pleased to note the dog had at some point departed their company. It had a rude habit of hoarding bed-space and it made loud noises in its sleep). “Is it for us?”
“I don’t know,” Sanford said honestly. “But you must not ask if you are not offered. This is not our home.”
“I wish Sarah lived with us.”
“That is not possible.” Sanford made an effort at neatening the bed, then gave up and left it rumpled. He watched his son huddle at the door, sniffing the aroma that came from whatever the human was cooking. He himself was perhaps a little hungry, but still nicely fed and beginning to concern himself more with how to get back behind the walls without endangering either his tactless son or the woman who had stolen them away. “Perhaps we should leave,” he said slowly.
“But after we eat, yes?”
“T’aki, come here.”
The gravity of his tone broke the hold of food, and the boy came, head cocked and curious. Sanford sat awkwardly on the bed, shifted several times, then hunkered on the floor and pulled his son onto his lap. Now he had the boy’s full attention, but he didn’t know quite how to begin. “Perhaps…we should not go back to our home in Cottonwood,” he said carefully. “I think Sarah will drive us away from this place if we ask.”
T’aki bobbed his head in a human gesture of assent, still listening and still puzzled. Of course Sarah would drive them away. She’d driven them here, hadn’t she, even without asking.
“We can live somewhere else,” he said. “And we will never go back behind the walls.”
“But we don’t have the key,” T’aki said, confused. “It doesn’t work yet.”
“No.”
“Will Sarah go and get it? Later?”
“No.”
T’aki stared at him without comprehension.
“It is a big planet,” Sanford said. “The humans cannot be everywhere. We will have a new home and it will be safer there.”
“But…it isn’t home. You said we will go to our home. On the ship.”
“Perhaps it is more important to be safe now than to go home later,” Sanford said, feeling with disquiet all the buried shadows in him that believed this and how desperately they urged the rest of him to agree.
“We’re supposed to go to the ship,” T’aki said stubbornly. “We’re supposed to go home.”
“Yes,” said Sarah suddenly from the doorway. She was standing just outside, pink with embarrassment for hearing this conversation, and for including herself in it. “You are. I’m sorry, Sanford. You’re right. What you’re doing is…is so much more important than being safe. For you or me or for anyone.”
He looked at her, his heart throbbing. “I know that isn’t easy for you to say.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whoop-de-wildebeest. Life is so hard when you have to say stuff.” She dropped her eyes and rubbed at them.
“What’s whoopee-wildebeest?” T’aki asked, puzzled.
Sanford rubbed his son’s head and set him down. “Even the smallest things matter, Sarah. Please take us home.”
“After you eat something.”
“Eat-Eat!” T’aki raced from the room.
Sarah lingered. Waiting to walk with him, he guessed, and guessed correctly as she fell into step close behind him. It was a human habit, he knew. He had often seen the guards at the wall walk together, and humans on television walking close if ever they went out walking. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.
He reached out and touched her arm with his fingertip. She started, then smiled at him and returned the gesture, finding his elbow-joint and stroking the receptive skin inside. His claspers twitched; he tightened them.
Then she let go and walked on ahead, to take food from the warmer and set it down before his son.
“What is it?” T’aki asked eagerly, tapping right at the bowl with his little claspers.
“Leftover Chinese. I kind of have to use it up, so…enjoy!”
T’aki squealed, lifted the bowl in both hands, and poured it whole into his throat, palps gnashing.
Appalled, Sanford snatched the empty bowl away and gave him a smack to the ear with it. “My son is gone!” he snapped. “Someone has sent me a Heap-rat to raise. Where are your manners?”
Sarah covered her mouth, to hide a smile, he was certain, and was grateful to her for not laughing out loud.
“I’m sorry.” Antennae flat, T’aki raised wounded eyes to his host. “It was good.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” she said in a solemn voice. “I’d
have been gladder to see you like it a little slower. Drink your water.”
He did, slowly, shooting anxious glances between them until he was done.
“Good thing I saved some out for you,” Sarah said, setting a second bowl on the table (which frustratingly made it necessary for him to sit on the flat-bottomed human chair. All good for T’aki, who could climb the thing and hunker down, but Sanford had to fit himself atop it). “He just about took the paint off the walls inhaling his like that.”
Sanford glared across the table. T’aki lowered his antennae.
“Anyway, as soon as you’re ready, I figure we’ll sneak back in.” It was the animal’s turn now; she opened a can of food, added a generous amount of hard brown nuggets, and the dog came running in from across the house to eat with even less decorum than his son. “There shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, I’ve never been searched before, so—oh gross, T’aki! Don’t eat that!”
Sanford spun and there was his boy, sitting on the floor beside the dog with a handful of nuggets, palps grinding away. At his father’s expression, he dropped the nuggets hurriedly back into the dog’s bowl, but simply had to argue: “Why not?”
“It’s dog food!”
“I eat food like this.”
Pain sank hard into Sarah’s face. After a moment, she wet a cloth at the sink and came around the table to wipe T’aki’s hands and palps. “I know you do,” she said softly. “But you shouldn’t. If you’re still hungry, I can fix you something else.”
“I’m not. I just wondered what it tasted like. It’s good!”
She knelt there, her hands on T’aki’s shoulders, looking sad and helpless, then gave the boy’s face a final washing and said, “Fagin doesn’t think he gets enough food as it is. You shouldn’t ought to take it out of his bowl.”
“Oh.” Now he looked ashamed. “I’m sorry, Fagin.”
The dog did not respond, save to shake its tail and keep eating as noisily as it could.
“I bet if you pick up that ball and go wait on the sofa, he’ll come play Fetch when he’s done.”
“Can I wait outside?”
She hesitated, looking at the sky, and Sanford said, “It’s too light. You may be seen. Play inside and be careful where you throw.”
“Yes, Father.” T’aki went away, downcast.
Sarah watched him go, then dropped her cloth on the table and sat heavily. Her eyes were far away.
Sanford picked at the meat in his bowl. It did smell good, but he had no appetite.
They sat.
“You are good to him,” Sanford said.
She laughed, but not in a happy way. “Not feeding someone dog food is what I would consider a common courtesy, not to be rewarded in and of itself. This place is horrible, Sanford. And I am a horrible part of this horrible place.”
“That’s enough.”
“Don’t, Sanford. Don’t try to tell me…” One hand rose, half-covering her face without touching it. She looked away. “I’m one of them. Don’t you think I know that? I’m one of them and I’m worse than them, because I know it’s wrong and I’m…” A little water trickled from her eye, just once. She rubbed it away. “I’m doing it anyway.”
“Enough, I said.”
She looked at him, startled by the sharpness of his tone.
He ate.
After a moment, so did she, but she was mostly just picking.
“Where is your coffee machine?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes and pointed. “It’s not broken,” she told him as he turned around to study it. “I just can’t figure out how to program it.”
“So I see,” he said, examining the settings. He cleared the task-menu of its many, many time-delayed orders and held out his hand. “What would you like?”
“A caramel macchiato.” She passed him a mug. “That’s the third button on the middle section. You just drop in a caramel packet—”
“I know. Now, watch closely. Mode one. Order.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” She smacked both hands to her face. “You have to hit mode? That’s it?!”
“—and then select base, then flavoring and then order again to complete. Just once. If you hit the button more than once—”
“It sets the timer,” she groaned behind her hands. “Yeah, I know that part. Mode. I thought you only used that to set the clock. I never would have thought of that in a million years.”
Her drink poured itself. Sanford ate the last of his morning meal.
“Something so simple,” she muttered, glaring into her cup. “I’m so stupid.”
Sanford reached across the table and thumped her on top of the head, where her ear would be if humans kept their ears in the usual place. He resumed eating.
“Fine, I’m not stupid. I’m just technologically retarded. Sheesh, you had that in less than a minute and you’re not even from this planet!”
“You’re welcome.”
“Oh.” She blinked rapidly. “Thank you. Uh…would you like some coffee?”
“Thank you. Black, no sugar.”
The meal concluded with two cups of coffee for each of them and a few sips for T’aki. Afterwards, an emotional farewell between boy and dog, and then into the dark room where the van laired, to be loaded into the rear hold under a blanket. T’aki, fed and covered over, slept on the short trip back, and no, there was no search at the gate, no trouble at all. The van did stop, but the man who came to the window did not question the obvious lump of blankets which sheltered Sanford and his sleeping son. He heard instead a low, worried voice: “I heard about last night. Are you okay?”
“Shaken, not stirred,” Sarah replied mysteriously, but the man laughed as if reassured.
“They said you tried to throw some kind of cook-out. Good for you.” A short silence, although Sarah must have communicated something because the man went on in relaxed good humor. “It took a lot of guts, but you know what they say: The first time is always the hardest. Maybe the next one will go over smoother.”
“You think there’ll be a next time?” Sarah asked.
“Not for a while, but sure, why not? They’re here to integrate, aren’t they?”
Again, Sarah made no answer, but when Sanford carefully shifted the blanket so that he could fit his eye to a tear in its fabric, he saw her smile reflected in the console-mirror. And that was all right. The man from the checkpoint gate was smiling back at her and while it was just as sincere in seeming, it struck him as distinctly less all right. He caught himself scraping his palps together and forced himself to lie still.
The man stepped away from the vehicle, although he reached out as he did so to catch the open window, anchoring himself to this continued moment. “So, yeah, I’ll let you get to it. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. And, maybe if you want, if you’re not too busy…”
“You mean if I’m not fired?” Sarah asked, still smiling although it had faded into something darker.
“Hey, if they were going to fire you, I’d be the first to know. You’re still on the list, so…” The man hung on the window, looking human and pink and ridiculous, and then suddenly, overloud, said, “You want to hang out sometime tonight?”
Sanford scraped his palps again, but Sarah’s voice covered what little sound he made with a startled, “What?”
The man let go of the window at once, his face very pink. “Well, not tonight,” he said quickly. “I’ve got a thing…but just in a casual sort of…if you didn’t have anything planned on some other night…not that I just stay home every single night—oh thank God,” he blurted as the phone at the checkpoint station rang for his attention. He retreated at a run and shut himself inside. The gate opened.
Sarah let out a stream of giggles, but only once, and it had the sound of nerves more than humor. She started driving, but as soon as she had turned onto the causeway, even that shaky laugh died. “Oh God,” she whispered, but that was all.
Sanford did not look. He would see it soon enough.
Slowly, the wheels ground and bounced along the road until finally the engines died. “This is it,” Sarah said, and came to open the door.
Her eyes were wet.
Sanford unfolded himself from the vehicle and looked around. It was not as bad as he’d feared. There were several shallow craters in the causeway where the explosive bombs had impacted, but all the houses seemed to be intact and only a few were singed. He could see charred patches of earth here and there, but no large bloodstains. He’d find out later just what casualties, if any, had ended the feast, but for himself, he was encouraged.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I hate bringing you back here. I know why I have to, but I hate it.”
“Will you come inside?” he asked, moving to open his door. “Please.”
“Sure, for a w—”
A shrill whistle and hard snap cut turned her acceptance into a flinch. Sam came briskly up the road, antennae high and in good spirits. “Nice party, huh?”
Sarah’s shoulders stiffened, but she forced her smile back on. “Hello, Mr. Samar—”
“I have to admit, when I heard you wanted to throw a block party, I didn’t really think you’d set fire to the whole fucking block,” Sam said. “You know, there are easier ways to get out of work than to cook your clients. And God knows that didn’t help the smell around here.” He took a deep breath, coughed it out theatrically and said, “Burnt bug. That is never coming out of my curtains, caseworker. Think you can order me some new ones?”
She stared at him, her mouth open slightly, then passed a hand over her face and turned around. She went without speaking to her van and drove away.
